Shaking sugar, forgoing fructose

but a new study confirms what has become old news: We should be kicking it.

A federally funded study in yesterday’s Journal of the American Medical Association focuses on fructose, and finds that consumption of the sugar tends to promote overeating.

Fructose, along with its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, is found in legions of processed foods.

Glucose is better for us than fructose, according to this research, because it doesn’t block the brain from registering the feeling of being full the way fructose does.

But glucose is no great shakes, either, decades of research proves.

For the record, table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose and half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. But most of us aren’t chemists, and it can be hard to keep track of these and other types of sugars.

There is an easier way: Lower our doses of all these ’oses.

Obesity, diabetes and other problems clearly trace in large measure to over-consumption of sugar. Let the scientists, nutritionists, doctors, and food industry lobbyists battle about the hows and whys.

If we’re smart, we’ll take the hint — if we haven’t already done so — and closely guard our consumption of sugar. Experts say we should pay particular attention to avoiding sugary sodas, highly processed foods and those teaspoons from the sugar bowl or sugar packets we add to cereal, coffee and tea.